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Rapidly emerging TagEnergy announces new renewables hub in north Queensland after ARENA battery funding win.

The post TagEnergy to press go on big renewables hub in north Queensland after battery win appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia's offshore wind industry launched, with formal declaration of first development zone and a leg-up to the 2.2GW Star of the South project.

The post Star of the South gets head start as Australia’s offshore wind race officially launched appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Final agreement could bring better protection for vital ecosystems and big reforms to agriculture

A potentially transformational agreement for nature is close to being reached at Cop15 in Montreal, which could bring better protection for Earth’s vital ecosystems such as the Amazon and Congo basin rainforests, big reforms to agriculture and better protection of indigenous territories and rights.

After four years of negotiations and 12 years since the last biodiversity targets were agreed in Japan, the Chinese president of Cop15 put forward its recommendations for a final agreement after two weeks of intense negotiations at the UN biodiversity summit in Canada.

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Until February 17 2023, you can have your say on the government’s plan for standardised company reporting of climate‑related risks, which would start in 2024-25. Anita Foerster, Associate Professor, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The amount of time without sea-ice is becoming too long for the bears to survive, experts say.

The fossil fuel industry’s campaign of naked self-interest has failed to get traction. Could this be a turning point?

Much has changed when it comes to climate and energy in Australia during 2022 but the country ends the year still needing an honest conversation about gas – what it is, the damage it does and the extent to which it is needed in the future.

Last week may eventually come to be seen as a marker of a change in how the country thinks about fossil fuels. The gas industry, backed by the Coalition and some news media, launched a campaign of naked self-interest against government plans to limit the impact of skyrocketing gas prices that echoed successful campaigns against carbon pricing and an increased mining tax a decade ago.

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My brother organised a medical camp after the summer’s deadly floods – a disaster caused by powerful nations

• Fatima Bhutto is an author of fiction and nonfiction
• What was the image on your phone that defined 2022?
  Writers give their perspectives

This summer, intense monsoon rains combined with glacial melt caused super-floods across Pakistan. We are home to the second largest number of glaciers after the polar regions and, thanks to global heating, they are melting at unprecedented, terrifying speed. This is the year the climate emergency came home to me, and this is a photo that haunts me.

The floods wiped out approximately a million livestock, decimated crops, displaced 30 to 50 million Pakistanis, destroyed thousands of kilometres of roads – and months later, the damage is still going on. Stagnant water means farmers cannot plant new crops – those who could not plant rice in October, with water in certain parts remaining thigh high, will have no harvest to reap come March.

Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani author of fiction and nonfiction

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Higher electricity prices compound the problem – as will the government’s plan to scrap ‘retained’ EU laws

The UK is falling far behind EU countries in its performance and policies on home insulation and energy efficiency, and will lose further ground if “retained laws” from the European Union are scrapped, according to a new study.

The report, by UK pressure group Another Europe is Possible and Germany’s respected Friedrich Ebert Foundation, says the UK is failing to match new EU laws which aim to double the annual rate of building renovation and reduce primary energy consumption by 39% by 2030.

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The first big battery in NSW is now officially fully operational. It will be joined by dozens more in coming years.

The post “Like riding a bike:” First big battery in Australia’s biggest coal grid enters full production appeared first on RenewEconomy.

EU legislators struck a provisional deal on the remaining EU ETS-related bills under the bloc's overarching Fit for 55 climate policy package early Sunday, agreeing to backload efforts until later in the decade but securing a slightly higher 2030 emissions reduction target than originally proposed. 

South Australia reaches 104.1 per cent wind and solar over state demand for the last seven days.

The post South Australia’s incredible week: 104.1 per cent wind and solar over seven days appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A handful of thorny issues remain unresolved as delegates at COP15 prepare for the final two days of negotiations in Montreal, even as a steady drip of new funding announcements over the past couple of days have intended to brighten the mood of the talks.

Biden poised to sign measure into law as US faces criticism at Cop15 biodiversity conference over failing to sign 30-year-old pact to protect nature

As the UN meets in Montreal to discuss saving biodiversity without the US, whose representatives are joining only as observers, conservationists are hailing one American step in the right direction: a likely ban on the trade of shark fins.

Although shark finning – the practice of cutting off shark fins and dumping the rest of the body back into the ocean – is illegal in the US, much of the trade in fins happens in US territory. As many as 73 million sharks are finned around the world each year.

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Scientists say a rare reef habitat near the mouth of the Amazon is at risk from oil exploration.

Last week’s experiment in the US is promising, but it’s not a magic bullet for our energy needs

The revelation that researchers had succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed made reassuring reading last week. For almost half a century, I have reported on scientific issues and no decade has been complete without two or three announcements by scientists claiming their work would soon allow science to recreate the processes that drive the sun. The end result would be the generation of clean, cheap nuclear fusion that would transform our lives.

Such announcements have been rare recently, so it gave me a warm glow to realise that standards may be returning to normal. By deploying a set of 192 lasers to bombard pellets of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, researchers at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, were able to generate temperatures only found in stars and thermonuclear bombs. The isotopes then fused into helium, releasing excess energy, they reported.

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This year’s best photography from Guardian Australia’s photographic team and freelance photographers across Australia and New Zealand

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Despite backing calls to protect 30% of world’s land and sea by 2030, UK has no such target in its own plans

The UK’s environment targets are a missed opportunity to protect Britain’s rainforests, cold water coral reefs, chalk streams and peat bogs, environmentalists have said, amid accusations of hypocrisy over the government’s position at Cop15.

On Friday, the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, announced the government’s legally binding targets at the UN summit in Montreal, where the world is negotiating this decade’s agreement to protect biodiversity on Earth, with talks expected to conclude on Monday.

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New research finds nearly 30% of land animals could disappear form their local area by 2100 due to climate change and habitat destruction. This is more than double previous predictions. Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University Giovanni Strona, Doctoral program supervisor, University of Helsinki Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

An Indian agritech startup has raised over $6 million in its latest funding round, bringing its cumulative investor haul to $13 mln.